Funeral held for skeleton used as teaching aid since 1952

Brian Niemietz

The weary bones of a skeleton used as a teaching aid for biology students over the past 70 years were laid to rest in the German town of Schleiden Wednesday.

That female skeleton’s origin is unknown, but she’d come to be known as Anh Bian by educators and pupils. That name translates to “mysterious peace” in Vietnamese. Before burying Anh Bian, DNA was taken from the skeleton, with hopes that more can be learned about its former owner. It had been used in high school biology classrooms since 1952. A plastic skeleton now serves that purpose.

“We are indeed laying to rest a member of the school community to their grave,” Pastor Oliver Joswig said.

Pupils of the Johannes-Sturmius-Gymnasium say goodbye to the coffin with the bones of a school skeleton at the cemetery, where they are being buried, in Schleiden, Germany, May 11, 2022.
Pupils of the Johannes-Sturmius-Gymnasium say goodbye to the coffin with the bones of a school skeleton at the cemetery, where they are being buried, in Schleiden, Germany, May 11, 2022.


Pupils of the Johannes-Sturmius-Gymnasium say goodbye to the coffin with the bones of a school skeleton at the cemetery, where they are being buried, in Schleiden, Germany, May 11, 2022. (Roberto Pfeil/)

The bones were laid to rest in a small coffin buried in a Protestant cemetery in the western German town near the Belgian border. It’s home to roughly 13,000 people. Anh Bian’s coffin was adorned with symbols from all the world’s major religions.

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